The European company (Societas Europaea, SE) has become a popular company law form for businesses, and it is most popular in the Czech Republic, which is puzzling. We study the motives of Czech SE founders on the basis of data from the Czech national Commercial Register on all Czech SEs registered in 2010 and 88 interviews with Czech SE users. SE incorporations in the Czech Republic are mainly driven by the desire to economise on board size and the positive European image of the SE (brand management). In addition, Czech SEs are usually purchased from service providers, with the SE assisting the purchaser financially by a loan in the amount of the minimum share capital (€ 120,000). The large number of Czech shelf SEs probably results either from service providers overestimating their advantages and, as a consequence, overestimating the demand for new SEs or, conversely, from users underestimating the beneficial effects of (re)incorporating as an SE. Time will tell which conjecture is closer to the truth.

欧洲公司（Societas Europaea，SE）已成为企业的一种流行的公司法律形式，并且在令人困惑的捷克共和国最受欢迎。我们根据捷克国家商业注册局提供的有关2010年注册的所有捷克SE的数据以及对捷克SE用户的88次采访来研究捷克SE创始人的动机。捷克共和国SE公司的成立主要是由于希望节省董事会人数和欧洲对SE（品牌管理）的正面印象。此外，捷克的股份公司通常从服务提供商处购买，股份公司通过提供最低股本金额（120,000欧元）的贷款在财务上协助购买者。大量捷克架SE可能是由于服务提供商高估了它们的优势，因此，高估了对新SE的需求，或者相反，用户低估了（重新）合并为SE的好处。时间会证明哪个猜想更接近真相。